The present invention relates to an apparatus for optical measurement and/or examination of a welding assembly, such as a motor vehicle axle or an instrument panel.
Nothing in the following discussion of the state of the art is to be construed as an admission of prior art.
Heretofore, the dimensional precision of welding assemblies, e.g. motor vehicle axles or instrument panels, produced on a large scale has been checked through attribute testing or measurement. Attribute testing involves the use of mechanical tracing gauges. This procedure is time consuming, inflexible, generally inaccurate, and prone to fail. Also known are photogrammetric processes for measuring an item which is arranged in a measuring space and recorded by cameras disposed in various positions. Through combining the image information from the individual cameras, the item can be measured in the three-dimensional space. A drawback of this procedure is the need for each camera to be calibrated onto the item prior to each measurement. This is time-consuming and results inaccurate measurements.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved apparatus for optical measurement and/or examination of a welding assembly to obviate prior art shortcomings.